--that's the best thing. Live together in peace and mutual
confidence. _C'est de beaucoup le plus sage_."

"Certainly, for yoke-fellows," said Sherringham.

He began the next moment to repeat to his new acquaintance some of the
things he had been told in London; but their hostess stopped him off,
waving the talk away with charming overdone stage horror and the young
hands of the heroines of Marivaux. "Ah wait till you go--for that! Do
you suppose I care for news of your mountebanks' booths?"

XX

As many people know, there are not, in the famous Theatre Francais, more
than a dozen good seats accessible to ladies.[*] The stalls are
forbidden them, the boxes are a quarter of a mile from the stage and the
balcony is a delusion save for a few chairs at either end of its vast
horseshoe. But there are two excellent _baignoires d'avant-scene_, which
indeed are by no means always to be had. It was, however, into one of
them that, immediately after his return to Paris, Sherringham ushered
Mrs. Rooth and her daughter, with the further escort of Basil Dashwood.
He had chosen the evening of the reappearance of the celebrated
Mademoiselle Voisin--she had been enjoying a _conge_ of three months--an
actress whom Miriam had seen several times before and for whose method
she professed a high though somewhat critical esteem. It was only for
the return of this charming performer that Peter had been waiting to
respond to Miriam's most ardent wish--that of spending an hour in the
_foyer des artistes_ of the great theatre. She was the person whom he
knew best in the house of Moliere; he could count on her to do them the
honours some night when she was in the "bill," and to make the occasion
sociable. Miriam had been impatient for it--she was so convinced that
her eyes would be opened in the holy of holies; but wishing as
particularly as he did to participate in her impression he had made her
promise she wouldn't taste of this experience without him--not let
Madame Carre, for instance, take her in his absence. There were
questions the girl wished to put to Mademoiselle Voisin--questions
which, having admired her from the balcony, she felt she was exactly the
person to answer. She was more "in it" now, after all, than Madame
Carre, in spite of her slenderer talent: she was younger, fresher, more
modern and--Miriam found the word--less academic. She was in fine less
"_vieux jeu_." Peter perfectly foresaw the day when his young friend